UNADULTERATED BOORISH OPINION: GREATEST HITS

After a month of showing off my actual knowledge of the show with some CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES essays, I decided to get lazy again and go back to opinion pieces. What can be more opinionated than an UNADULTERATED BOORISH OPINION entry? 

GREATEST HITS is a new series that I've decided to develop that I hope you will find interesting. Because there's definitely more stories I'd love to cover that fit into this category! 

MY OTHER GREAT GEEK PASSION

This is a topic I've wanted to cover for a while, here. Even before I ever started writing a blog, this issue has consumed me deeply and caused me to rant endlessly. It's a phenomenon that doesn't just go on in Doctor Who, but in all forms of fandom.   

The term "Greatest Hit" is one we see referred to the most in the music industry. It's used to describe a song that an artist or band has made that they are most famous for.  The tune has earned them their highest revenue in royalties and gets the loudest cheers when they play it live. When you think of this particular artist or band, it's this track that comes first to mind. 

I'm not a big fan of Greatest Hits. 

The best way to exemplify why I have such feelings about these types of songs is to discuss my other Great Geek Passion. I'm as much in love with the Canadian progressive rock trio Rush as I am with Doctor Who. I have, in fact, contemplated starting a sort of Pretentious Rush Essays Blog for quite a while. But, really, a man only has so much time for blogging! 

Rush's Greatest Hit would probably be a song they did way back in the early 80s called Tom Sawyer. It's a pretty good track. It's especially impressive because the drummer has to execute this very difficult cross to create a drum beat that's heard right at the beginning of the song. The lyrics, however, are a bit too nonsensical for my liking. Particularly for a Rush song. One of the things I always enjoyed about the words of their music are how delightfully straightforward they are. 

I probably saw about a dozen live Rush concerts and just as many concert videos while the band was still active. Tom Sawyer was usually the last song they played in their set before they came out for their encore. They did this because they knew this was the song the crowd had been waiting for all night and they wanted to go out with a bang. It always received a standing ovation with thunderous applause and wild cheers as it concluded. 

Everyone loves Tom Sawyer. 

Tom Sawyer is, at best, a decent song. As I outlined in an earlier paragraph, it's got some significant strong points and some equally-potent weak qualities. If you want to hear a really great song by Rush, try listening to Natural Science. It really shows the range of the band as it starts off very melodic and then shifts gears several times until it reaches a very inspiring crescendo a good ten minutes later. The lyrics also explore some fascinating themes as they examine several different sociological issues. Natural Science, to me, is a masterpiece. Some of the best work the band has ever done. 

And yet, it's rarely played in concerts. Whereas Tom Sawyer comes out at every show. 

I'm not a big fan of Greatest Hits because they may be songs that resonate with a larger market but they are not, usually, the best example from an artist's body of work. This fact almost seems to frustrate me.

"You're a big Rush fan?!" people will say to me, "Man, do I love that song Tom Sawyer!!" 

"Yeah." I'll answer almost dismissively, "But, if you really want to hear a great Rush song, give Natural Science a listen. It's actually probably better than Tom Sawyer." 

"No way, man!" they'll scoff, "Nothing beats Tom Sawyer!"

Then they'll suddenly pretend to air guitar.

"A modern-day warrior mean, mean stride." they quote, "Today's Tom Sawyer mean, mean pride!"

I do my best to stifle a sigh and the rolling of my eyes! 

BACK TO THE WHO STUFF

What I just described with Rush also happens in Doctor Who. 

"Genesis of the Daleks, man!" fans will go on, "Such a classic! Best story ever!" 

"It's a bit clunky, in places." I'll try to refute politely, "Should only be four episodes instead of six. And probably has the worst cliffhanger resolution in the history of the show." 

"No way, man!" they'll say back. "It's so awesome when Davros does a pointless monologue about having a lethal virus that can wipe out all life! And those killer clams rock!" 

They suddenly pretend to be a Dalek. Standing erect and extending one arm out further than other to imitate the plunger and egg whisk. 

"We are entombed!" they quote, "But we live on!"   

A BIT MORE OBJECTIVE (BUT ONLY SO MUCH!)

Admittedly, I may be exaggerating things slightly for comedic effect (or even trying to make myself sound cooler than everyone else - I have been known to do that!). But it does rankle me that, quite frequently, a Greatest Hit gets way more attention than it really should. In discussions about the Fifth Doctor era, for instance, Caves of Androzani tends to steal all the thunder. Whereas I feel Kinda is such a better Peter Davison story. Or Earthshock, for that matter. Although Earthshock does tend to get the credit it deserves. But I still almost froth at the mouth over the fact that people will go on way more about Androzani than they will Kinda. That first tale about the Mara is such a superior creation! 

Yes, this is all pretty subjective and based entirely on my own opinion of what constitutes a good Doctor Who story (apparently, paper mache snakes is a vital ingredient!). But, if you go back and look at the title of this thing, it is called Unadulterated Boorish Opinion. So that's what I'm going to do: express how I feel on the subject. Basically, I will blather on about what I think is a story that gets more love than it ought to. 

I will still try to be fair to the tales I choose for this series. I'm not here to just completely tear them down. Clearly, there's a reason why they've become Greatest Hits. They have plenty of good things about them and audiences appreciate that. But my real point will be to express that there aren't quite enough fine points to the adventure to give it the respect and recognition it receives. 

THE LUCKY WINNER FOR THIS ENTRY 

Okay, we've gone to elaborate lengths to explain what constitutes a Greatest Hit (pretty sure I could have just said "overrated" and everyone would've understood - I think I was just looking for an excuse to talk about Rush!). Now that we've accomplished that, let's actually get on with discussing a story that I feel is one. 

I've decided I don't want to be too inflammatory, yet, with this series. There are several stories out there that are greatly loved by the fans that I don't really think are half as awesome as people say they are (if you've been paying careful attention - I've already mentioned one!). I could tear into one of those fan favorites right here and now. But I thought I'd start things off gently. I'm going to go with a story that is still highly regarded but isn't so dearly-loved that it will cause some of you to boil with rage if I denounce it in any way. 

The first Greatest Hit that I want to discuss will be Pyramids of Mars. A popular little tale from Tom Baker's second season. I do find that the Fourth Doctor Era is heavily plagued with Greatest Hits. Particularly the stuff that was produced by Big Bad Philip Hinchcliffe. There is a lot of content from this period that is very solidly put-together - I'll be the first to admit. I do find, however, that it's not all that it's cracked up to be. They're decent stories with a few critical misfires that I feel cause them to fall short of being considered "Classics". But a lot of fans seem to gloss the flaws over. They see so many stories from this time as being the greatest television ever made. I think a lot of this is due to the combined talent of Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen. They were both so excellent in their roles that it almost made the shortcomings fade away. Or, at least, they achieved that effect with a lot of the audiences that have watched these adventures over the years. I did enjoy the incredible charisma of both of these performers, but that didn't stop me from still taking note of various problems that occurred in many of the episodes they starred in. 

Pyramids of Mars is a great example of this. Baker and Sladen do a great job of propelling a fairly threadbare plot along. But, for me, it's just not enough to get me to ignore a few crucial issues with the whole story. 

Before I tear down too much, though, let's build things up a bit. 

THE STUFF THAT ALMOST GETS IT TO ACHIEVE "CLASSICNESS" 

Pyramids of Mars, like so many tales from the Hinchcliffe era, oozes with atmosphere. It's not just really well-shot, it was recorded on some genuinely impressive film. Even decades later, the colors look strong and intense. When things need to appear gloomy and full of shadows, the effect is also well-achieved. The whole thing is great on the eyes.  

On top of the visuals, we also get a great backing track of incidental music. Particularly all that organ music! This all helps to create that "Hammer Horror Vibe" that's frequently referenced about stories from this particular period. Undeniably, the superficial aspects of Doctor Who are at their best, here. Pyramids excels even better in this area than most because it's meant to to take place in the past. The Beeb always does a great period piece. 

There are also some great ideas at work in this story. Egyptian mythology being based on an actual alien culture was a very neat concept. The info dump the Doctor does about the whole thing in Part Two is a very fun moment. As is the quick side-trip that gets taken in the TARDIS later in that episode. It's nice to have the "history is in a state of flux" or "time can be re-written" concept illustrated so clearly for us. The whole digression, if we're being totally honest, is meant to be a bit of filler for an episode that's running too short. But it ends up being a really great scene, anyway. 

And then there's the sheer magnitude of the Main Threat. This is what provides the story with a lot of its potency. We've seen the Doctor save all sorts of civilisations or even entire planets. On some occasions, he's thwarted perils that would have affected an entire galaxy. This just might be the first time he's saved the whole Universe, though. Dealing with such a huge menace really does make the whole adventure very dramatic. I really think this is the story's greatest asset.

Finally, there's the ending to Pyramids of Mars. Taking advantage of a legitimate scientific fact about the length of time it takes radio waves to travel from Mars to Earth is undeniably clever. It wraps the whole plot up quite neatly. 

MORE STUFF THAT ALMOST GETS IT TO ACHIEVE CLASSICNESS

Before hitting on the negatives, there's some important things we need to acknowledge about the performances in this tale. The entire cast does a great job in this one. Several characters, of course, hail from the early 1900s and the actors excel at being convincing characters from the past. But there are some specific nuances that really need some high praise. 

I'm really impressed with the chemistry between Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen. Truthfully, they've always been excellent together. But, here, they seem to do better than usual. The synergy between the two of them really is at an apex. Part of it, I think, is how Sarah Jane is actually written. She seems to be at her absolute smarmiest in this tale. Right in her opening scene in the TARDIS, she's taking the piss out of the Doctor as he talks about walking in eternity. For some odd reason, making her so sarcastic really works for the character. It never seems to go too far but it does make for some really good interplay between her and Four. 

Tom Baker's performance specifically stands out. He's in a very weird space with the role during this particular period of the show. In some stories, he's a complete buffoon who can barely be taken seriously (which would, eventually, be the only way he would play the part until he's properly restrained during Season 18). At other times, he plays things very straight with only the briefest moments of levity. During Pyramids, he chooses the latter approach. I'm so glad he did because the plot is meant to have such high stakes. If Baker had been mugging his way through it all as he did during, say, Season 17 - the whole thing would've fallen flat. I'm so happy he makes the choice he did. Truthfully, I preferred when he played the part this way. He was so much more effective when he did. I particularly love the scene where he reminds Sarah that he isn't actually human. Had he not done that scene with a serious tone, it would have been terrible to watch.    

And then, of course, there's the vocal work of Gabriel Woolf. No villain has sounded more wretched and evil than he did (Okay, maybe Valentine Dyall beats him - but not by much!). An absolutely perfect piece of casting for a creature of pure evil.  It's not just a question of the voice being so rich and sibilant, though. Woolf really seems to understand the character and hits each note perfectly in the way the lines are delivered. You can hear it in moments where we do get ever-so-slightly inside of Sutekh's head. The "Your evil is my good" moment demonstrates this beautifully. The conviction in Woolf's voice is great. 

AND NOW, THE BAD STUFF THAT MAKES IT FAIL TO BE A CLASSIC  

In order to make my critique as concise as possible, I'm going to legitimately enumerate the flaws of this story. Just so you can see how the negative points add up and make it impossible to truly see this story as "the Absolute Classic" that some fans label it to be.      

1. The Poacher

The Poacher in Pyramids of Mars is, in  many ways, almost not a bad call. We could, in fact, view him as an example of some very avant garde writing. He has no real interaction with the principle characters. He is his own separate, self-contained subplot that begins and ends during Part Two. He's not even all that necessary to the overall story. We do first discover through him that Sutekh placed a force field around the Priory. But we could've, easily, learnt such a thing through other means. And, yes, the Doctor and Sarah go to his shed to get some blasting gel but that doesn't mean we had to actually ever see him. It could've easily just been mentioned that there's a poacher in the area who has a shed with blasting gel in it and be done with it. 

We really could almost say that the Poacher was a bold piece of experimental writing that uses a character in a very unique way. He is introduced and then killed off in the very same episode without creating much of any real consequence to the plot. It's an extremely novel concept. 

We could claim this but it seems far more obvious that the Poacher was created because the episode was running short and needed some padding. 

Padding isn't, necessarily, a bad thing if it's done cleverly. Look at the cook in Enemy of the World. He's called into existence for a similar reason. But his scenes are quite entertaining and he is used a bit to help propel the story forward. His kitchen is a place for some important business in the plot and he becomes a part of it in the process. 

The Poacher, however, falls more under the category of blatant padding. If he had been kept alive in Part Three and assisted the Doctor and Sarah for a bit before getting killed by a mummy, he might have been a bit less obvious (it could have easily been him shooting at the bomb on the pyramid rocket. That would have made more sense than having Sarah suddenly become a skilled marksman). But creating him, having him serve the plot in no real way and then killing him off all in such a short span of time makes it pretty clear that he was just there to fill a hole. 

Also, getting crushed to death by the pointy chests of mummies looked extremely silly! 

2. Providing Sutekh with a means of escape 

I've already discussed this a bit in a recent COMPLETE AND UTTER SILLINESS essay about My Favorite Plot Holes  (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/06/complete-and-utter-silliness-few-of-my.html) so I won't go on about it too much. 

There is zero logic to imprisoning Sutekh but then giving him robot servitors and a missile that has the ability to reach Mars and blow up the pyramid that generates the containment field that is holding him. Why would you leave this sort of stuff lying around for him when you're trying to restrain one of the greatest menaces in the Universe?! 

This fundamental flaw to the whole plot seriously hampers my enjoyment of the story. The high stakes that the Doctor is dealing with are meant to be taken very seriously. But it's a bit hard to get into the drama when such a silly plot hole sits in the center of the whole tale. 

I did also do a FIXING CONTINUITY GLITCHES essay a while back that comes up with a bit of head cannon to explain this away (I tried to find it and provide a link but I really did write it a long time ago and it was only a small portion of the entry. Sorry!). I, basically, theorised that Sutekh was still able to exercise his powers slightly (as we see him do in the actual story) and he, slowly but surely, conjured all this equipment into existence. 

Creating head cannon is not always a bad thing to do (it can be quite fun, in fact!). There are certain "murky areas" in Trial of a Time Lord, for instance, that I think are perfectly acceptable to fill in the gaps for. Figuring out for yourself what really happened in the Matrix falsifications is no great crime. Or trying to work out Mel's convoluted time line after the trial concludes is just fine for me. 

But to not provide a proper explanation for why Sutekh has all this stuff to free him and just leave it to the fans to figure out is too great of a sin for a writer to commit. Especially when you have this extra-sarcastic version of Sarah Jane Smith. She should've questioned this. Then a bit of an explanation could have been given by the Doctor. I don't even care if it had not been my theory that provided the answer. I just think an explanation of some sort would have been nice!   

3. The traps of Episode Four 

This is where I start getting a bit nitpicky. 

For a few seasons of 70s Who, the writers used a very blatant trick to mark time. In fact, they used it a bit too frequently for my liking. And, unfortunately, they use it in Pyramids of Mars. 

Essentially, they will take an entire episode of a story and place the Doctor and Sarah (or, in some instances, Belal) in a place that is full of Indiana-Jones-style traps. Slowly but surely, they assail the perils by using their wits and guile. The whole process, of course, fills up the episode nicely and we have enough story to create a proper four-parter.   

If this had only been done in, say, Death to the Daleks and not seen again a season-or-so later in Pyramids and then done again less-than-a-season later in Hand of Evil then I wouldn't be so bothered by it all. Just resorting to the trick once would have been okay. Even a bit inventive. But to tote it out every time you need to get the running time up gets tiresome really quickly. I was glad when this technique was finally abandoned. But, unfortunately, it left a nasty stain on my appreciation of this story before it was finally dropped. 

Also, the way the Doctor solves the picture puzzle is quite silly. Clearly, it's just an odd man out situation. He didn't need to measure everything with his scarf! 

4. Just not enough there

While I have discussed padding issues in two different sections, already, I still feel it is important to address this problem in a point of its own. 

There just isn't enough story, here, to fill four parts. Some digressions, like returning to the TARDIS and showing a future where Sutekh isn't stopped, work very well. But other attempts to fill things out, like the Poacher or assailing traps throughout Episode Four, work to the story's detriment. The truth of the matter is: the adventure is just a bit weak on plot. 

It makes one wish that the production team had returned to the three-parter way faster than they did. So many stories in the Sylvester McCoy era work as well as they do because the writer wasn't under pressure to fill that imposing fourth episode. Pyramids of Mars, I think, would have benefited greatly from this. 

Sadly, because it needed to meet requirements that were beyond its ability to fulfill, I find myself not being able to quite label this a "True Classic". 

FINAL VERDICT

While those four negative points I've made cut quite deeply, I still wish to emphasise that I do really enjoy a lot of what Pyramids of Mars has to offer. It, very nearly, qualifies for the "Absolute Classic" label that many fans ascribe to it. But I do feel that, like many Greatest Hits, it falls a bit short of being as great as people say it is. 

As I continue to contribute to this series, however, there will be stories that I will criticise far more harshly. I will look at tales that I have no idea why they are so highly regarded. They seem riddled with problems. To the point where I find them legitimately bad. 

I will add this extra warning: several of these "bad stories" hail from what many consider the "golden age" of the show. The Tom Baker/Philip Hinchcliffe/Robert Holmes period. So, if you want to read about some very controversial opinions - stick with this series. There's much more to come... 

And so, the first installment in my Greatest Hits series is complete. 

If all goes well, I will be here again soon. Talking about other stories that I consider to  merely be Greatest Hits rather than truly excellent examples of Doctor Who.   

Hopefully, you will enjoy my blow-hard opinions!